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You know how I often speak about how competitors need to have more respect for the stage? Well, in this article I\u2019m going to talk about a man named Jo Palacios. Jo is a competitor that has been really knocking on the door. He has been earning top placings and he has also been getting accolades for a variety of reasons. Initially he received a lot of blowback because of some big talk that he unleashed leading up to the Tampa Pro. The big talk being that he thought that he was going to defeat Nick Walker. This is not a sport for the humble. You can be humble but it isn\u2019t recommended. And why do I say that? Well I say it for the simple reason that competitors need to have a tremendous amount of self-confidence because if they don\u2019t have it they will all but disappear on stage. The sport isn\u2019t really geared towards humble people. There are competitors that like to have the facade of being humble, even of being meek. It is pious and it looks good but in reality this is a sport all about vanity. It really doesn\u2019t matter how you try to sell it. Again we\u2019re talking about striving for excellence but it\u2019s more than that. Bodybuilders are actually striving for perfection. That\u2019s the whole purpose of symmetry. It\u2019s the idea that one side of your body is comparable to the other side of your part body. In other words, one side of your body has to be the exact same as the other part of your body. That is what symmetry is. Flow means that it all comes together. Balance means that your body is in equilibrium. In reality you can phrase it in a million different ways but the goal is to look as perfect as possible. Perfection may seem unattainable but that is the cat and mouse game that every bodybuilder finds themselves in. When I speak of bodybuilders I\u2019m speaking of physique-based athletes. Everybody wants to look perfect even if it\u2019s just for a few seconds on stage. Now tell me that you can be humble while trying to look perfect. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible. At the same time if you\u2019re too overly confident then you can run into trouble.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what happened to Jo. Jo didn\u2019t focus on the fact that Nick Walker had been in the top three of the Olympia or that Nick Walker had won the Arnold Classic. He couldn\u2019t afford to do that because if he did that then he would lack the self-confidence necessary to go toe to toe with him. He needed to really believe that he could win and as a result of that he also started to talk the same game that he was supposed to use to psych himself out for the stage. Now guys like William Bonac didn\u2019t really appreciate that. Like I said it\u2019s very difficult to have a tremendous amount of self-confidence without maybe getting some blowback in the process.\u00a0 This blowback isn\u2019t just important for Jo\u2019s personal mindset but it\u2019s also important for media attention. Look at the case of Charles Griffen. Charles has a phenomenal physique and he put in the work and looked really good in the weeks leading up to the contest, but nobody really cared about Charles because he just was too quiet. He didn\u2019t have that bravado and he didn\u2019t have that almost overzealous self-confidence. So as he got closer to Tampa very few media outlets gave him the time of day. Jo, on the other hand, was talking a big game the whole way through. Media outlets couldn\u2019t help but talk about him and by talking about him his stock was slowly but surely rising. It was rising so much so that Nick Walker who was the favorite to win took offense at Jo\u2019s self-confidence. But this is what you have to do in today\u2019s world of bodybuilding.<\/p>\n
Back in the day if you could land the magazine contract or if you landed a big enough supplement contract then they would take care of you in terms of buzz and hype. But now magazines are a thing of the past. There is only one magazine left and it is nothing like the old ones. That\u2019s not because of a lack of heart or anything like that, it\u2019s just simply because it\u2019s a totally different time now. Back in the days of Flex and Muscular Development those magazines had stables of their own athletes. The magazines promoted the athletes because the athletes helped them sell magazines and in turn help them sell ad space. Everybody was making money. Everybody from the writers to the photographers to the publishers ate. But those days are gone. Also gone are the days of massive supplement contracts. Back in the days of CellTech and BSN, their top guys were making so much money that the companies pushed them through ad campaigns and through collaborations with the magazines. But since those days are long gone now it falls upon the athletes to get that buzz. And that\u2019s exactly what guys like Jo were doing. And guys that don\u2019t do it, wind up like guys like Charles \u2013\u00a0 totally ignored.<\/p>\n
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